Thinking of Disinfecting Your Sponge? It’ll Do More Harm Than Good

Common house-cleaning wisdom advises you to clean your sponges periodically. Some experts advise running them through the dishwasher, while others suggest microwaving a wet sponge. But a new study says that both of those techniques will do more harm than good, as The New York Times reports.

A trio of microbiologists came to this conclusion after collecting used sponges from households in Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany, a city near Zurich. As the researchers write in Nature Scientific Reports, they asked the 14 houses that gave them sponges to describe how they were used—how many people in the house handled them, how often they used them, how often they replaced them, and if they ever tried to clean them.

Analyzing DNA and RNA found on those sponges, they found a total of 362 different bacterial species living on them. The sheer number of the bacterial colonies was staggering—some 82 billion total bacteria were living in a cubic inch of sponge. (As co-author Markus Egert told the Times, that’s similar to what you’d find in your poop.)

As the researchers discovered by analyzing the bacteria found on sponges whose users said they regularly cleaned them, disinfecting a sponge using a microwave, vinegar, or a dishwasher is worse than useless. It seems that when you attempt to clean a sponge, you kill off some bacteria, but in doing so, you provide an environment for the worst species of bacteria to thrive. Sponges that were regularly cleaned had higher concentrations of bacteria like Moraxella osloensis, which can cause infections in humans. (Though it’s unclear how likely you are to get infected by your sponge.) It’s also the reason dirty laundry smells. By microwaving your sponge, you’re probably just making it smellier.

Sadly, there’s not much you can do about your dirty sponge except throw it away. You can recycle it to use as part of your cleaning routine in the bathroom or somewhere else where it’s far away from your food, but the best way to get a clean sponge, it seems, is to just buy a new one. May we suggest the Scrub Daddy?

This Smart Accessory Converts Your Instant Pot Into an Air Fryer

If you can make a recipe in a slow cooker, Dutch oven, or rice cooker, you can likely adapt it for an Instant Pot. Now, this all-in-one cooker can be converted into an air fryer with one handy accessory.

This Instant Pot air fryer lid—currently available on Amazon for $80—adds six new cooking functions to your 6-quart Instant Pot. You can select the air fry setting to get food hot and crispy fast, using as little as 2 tablespoons of oil. Other options include roast, bake, broil, dehydrate, and reheat.

Many dishes you would prepare in the oven or on the stovetop can be made in your Instant Pot when you switch out the lids. Chicken wings, French fries, and onion rings are just a few of the possibilities mentioned in the product description. And if you're used to frying being a hot, arduous process, this lid works without consuming a ton of energy or heating up your kitchen.

The lid comes with a multi-level air fry basket, a broiling and dehydrating tray, and a protective pad and storage cover. Check it out on Amazon.

For more clever ways to use your Instant Pot, take a look at these recipes.

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The internet can transport you to the most famous theme park rides on Earth, like Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain in Disney World. It can also introduce you to obscure attractions you may have trouble believing exist in real life. If you're interested in the stranger side of theme parks, it doesn't get much weirder than Hundeprutterutchebane in Denmark, a.k.a. the dog fart rollercoaster.

Hundeprutterutchebane is one of the more memorable attractions at the Danish amusement park BonBon-Land. While it's not the most intense rollercoaster, it may leave riders feeling nauseated by the end. After boarding cars shaped like a character called Henry the Farting Dog, they zoom past another sculpture of Henry lifting his leg over a pile of poop. The coaster also passes through a tunnel filled with sounds of canine flatulence. You can experience the unique ride in the video below from Theme Park Crazy.

Hundeprutterutchebane isn't the only attraction at BonBon-Land that appeals to an immature sense of humor. There's also a "skid mark" coaster and a "horse dropping" ride, as well as pictures of urinating, defecating, and vomiting cartoon animals throughout the park. Even though it's themed around gross-out humor, BonBon-Land was actually started by a candy company. BonBon specialized in selling candies with cheeky names like "pee diapers," "seagull droppings," and "dog fart."